Release Pay Success Story: Work Release Payments
The Idaho Department of Correction Fiscal Services group provides oversight, financial reporting, and policy direction for all accounting functions within the Idaho DOC, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, grants, cost of supervision, and resident trust accounting.
Joann Henscheid, senior financial specialist, is responsible for offender accounts, including closing the financial accounts of residents who are being released from their correctional facilities and issuing any final monetary disbursements.
She said switching from paper checks to Tyler’s Release Pay debit cards has resulted in both time and cost savings for her group and benefits for the former residents.
Challenge
When Henscheid joined the Idaho DOC as a financial tech, all of the money moving into and out of the Idaho DOC — from employee payroll, to funds added to inmate commissary accounts, to work release pay — was handled via paper checks or money orders.
“We hand entered absolutely everything,” said Henscheid, now the Idaho DOC Fiscal Services group’s senior financial specialist. “It was very time consuming.”
One of the most time-consuming tasks each week related to residents who were being released from their facilities. When an inmate is released, the Idaho DOC is responsible for issuing them any money they brought to the facility, received from friends or family members, or earned during their incarceration through institutional or vocational work, or through work release programs.
Up until recently, these disbursements were sent via paper checks that were mailed to the address each resident provided upon release or the check was returned to the facility. With between five and 40 residents being released each day, that process added up to anywhere from two and a half to five hours of printing and signing checks and addressing, stuffing, and posting envelopes each week — an expensive and time-consuming process.
The process didn’t always end once the check was mailed. Newly released residents often gave an incorrect address or moved again soon after being released.
“When that happened, the check would come back to us,” Henscheid said. “Or they’d call us and say they hadn’t received their money. Either way, we’d have to void the original check and start over.”
Henscheid estimates at least 20% to 30% of release checks were returned, leading her and her team to have to search for a correct address to send a reissued check. After two years, if a release payment remained unclaimed, it became subject to the escheatment process, where the funds are ceded to the government. Henscheid said that process alone could take up to an entire week or more each year.
Release Pay has saved us 30 minutes to an hour a day of hand entering information and printing and mailing checks. And of course, we don’t go through as many checks as we used to. It’s helped us cut down quite a bit on that cost. We don’t receive nearly as many phone calls or visits from former residents asking about their money or coming by to pick up a check, since they get it all that last day as they’re leaving.
Joann Henscheid
Senior Financial Specialist, Idaho Department of Correction
Solution
Idaho DOC made the decision to switch from mailing paper checks to issuing residents Release Pay debit cards immediately upon release in July 2016. Release Pay is Tyler’s payment disbursement solution for the corrections industry.
“It’s probably saved us 30 minutes to an hour a day of hand entering information and printing and mailing checks,” said Henscheid. “And of course, we don’t go through as many checks as we used to. It’s helped us cut down quite a bit on that cost.”
The new system also allows Idaho DOC to close out a resident’s account the day before they’re being released, whereas in the past they’d have to start the process a week before. This meant sometimes they’d have to cut former residents a second check for any new funds they accrued that week, especially if payroll was run during that time.
“We don’t receive nearly as many phone calls or visits from former residents asking about their money or coming by to pick up a check, since they get it all that last day as they’re leaving,” she said.
Results
The change has not only saved Henscheid’s department a significant amount of time and money, but it has also helped recently released offenders transition into their new lives outside of the correctional facility.
“One hurdle they faced before is it often hard for them to cash the checks, since a lot of them didn’t have bank accounts,” Henscheid explained. “Now they get a debit card they can use immediately without needing to have a bank account or a permanent address.”
“It’s also just a good learning process for them,” Henscheid added. “Some of these offenders have been in a correctional facility for 15 years, and they don’t know how to use regular debit cards. This helps them adapt a little bit easier to getting out into the rest of the world.”
From city or county jails and detention centers to transitional work programs and state departments of corrections, Tyler’s Release Pay is the hassle-free way to pay residents accurately and on time.
Learn more about how Release Pay can help your state, county, or municipality solve its most complex pay disbursement challenges by scheduling a call with one of our payment technology experts.